Heritage

While Bollman Hat Company is the oldest hat maker in America, we continue to find new ways to grow while maintaining our reputation for innovative designs, unsurpassed quality, and world-class service. Drawing inspiration from many generations of Bollman employees dating back to our beginning in 1868, our employee-owners today make products that give our loyal customers fashion, outdoor function, fun, and a personal style statement. We supply our world-wide customers’ warmth from the cold, skin protection from the sun, and a great look in all climates.

What sets the Bollman Hat Company apart from other companies in our market? How are we able to survive and continuously thrive longer than any other U.S. based hat company?

Throwing humility to the wind, we would answer as follows:

We are an employee-owned company and that positively motivates a large percentage of our employees to perform to a higher level. We involve our employees in what we are trying to accomplish and ask for their ideas. We share our success with regular reports, annual ESOP statements, and profit sharing distribution. We have employee-owners who are the fourth generation of their family who have worked for the company and many of our employee-owners achieve forty years of service and more. Thirteen employees exceeded fifty years with our company!

We produce a recognized, quality product and have earned a reputation for excellent customer service. We have the knowledge base andability to jump through hoops for our customers and we do!

Our diversified and vertical manufacturing processes and our distribution and customer service facilities are second to none. We have cut production cycle times and continually work at getting faster and better.

We have innovated unique designs, styles, finishes and constructions that have been copied but not duplicated. We also uniquely produce hats for niche markets.

Our brands are getting stronger. KANGOL®, the world’s most recognized headwear brand, is the hat of choice for a huge list of taste makers and celebrities. Bailey®, Betmar®, Country Gentleman®, Eddy Bros.®, Helen Kaminski®, PANTROPIC® are all brands which we own and we have headwear licenses for Karen Kane, and Jacaru. These brands lead, or are in the top two or three of, their competitive market set.

We have developed a strategic vision and are willing to take risks to build our company and the future of our employee-owners and their families.